English Vocabulary

A word is more than a definition

A dictionary line is only the start. To use a word you need its part of speech, a typical partner ("make a decision", not "do a decision"), and whether it belongs in a meeting or with friends. "Purchase" and "buy" point at the same act. One is for a contract, the other for speech.

Words also come in sets. If you know "arrive", "depart", and "delay", you can talk about travel. Isolated words from a random list are harder to recall because nothing in the sentence calls them up.

Families and everyday topics

English builds many words from a smaller set of roots, prefixes, and suffixes. Word building in English is that system: "happy" becomes "unhappy" and "happiness", and once you see the pattern you can guess words you have not studied. Guessing is not the same as knowing, so you still check the new word in a sentence.

Other words are learned by the situation, not by a root. Numbers, dates, and times in English is that kind of set: "on Monday", "at 7", "in March", "half past". The grammar is small and the words are used constantly, so they belong together.

Pairs that learners swap

A lot of vocabulary trouble is two words that are close, or a word used with the wrong partner. The sentence is grammatical and still wrong.

Not: I did a decision yesterday. Use: I made a decision yesterday. "Decision" takes "make", not "do".

Not: The class starts in Monday. Use: The class starts on Monday. Days take "on". "In" is for months, years, and parts of the day like "in the morning".

Not: He is a very success person. Use: He is a very successful person. "Success" is the noun. The adjective is "successful".

How to add words that stay

Ten words from one topic, each in a sentence you might actually say, stick better than fifty from a mixed list. Review the ones you missed, and notice the partner word each time, not only the translation.

When you meet a new word in something you are reading, write the whole phrase, not the word alone. "A heavy delay" will come back. "Delay" by itself may not.

Absolute Beginner

• Classroom words and instructions Listen, repeat, open, again — the words a lesson runs on.
• Everyday objects The things in a bag, a room, and a pocket.
• Family words Mother, father, brother, sister, and the near ones.
• Food and drink words What you can order and what you can buy.
• Greetings and goodbyes Hello, good morning, see you, and the rest.
• Numbers 0 to 20 The numbers a learner needs on day one.
• The alphabet Twenty-six letters, by name.

Beginner

• A typical day The routine from waking up to going to bed.
• Activities Things people do for pleasure, as -ing forms.
• Clothes What people wear, and describing an outfit.
• Colors and common adjectives Basic colors and the adjectives used most often with them.
• Countries Naming where people and things come from.
• Directions and prepositions of place Asking the way and following the answer.
• Everyday verb phrases get up, go to work, have lunch, and the rest of a day.
• Food and drink Everyday meals, drinks, and ordering them.
• Free-time verb phrases What people do with a weekend.
• Hotels Rooms, keys, reception, and what is in a room.
• In the classroom Objects, instructions, and the phrases for asking about them.
• Inviting and offering Asking someone to do something, and offering to help.
• Jobs and places of work What people do and where they do it.
• Kinds of movies Genres, and saying what you think of one.
• Months and ordinal numbers Saying the date.
• More verb phrases Common actions that pair with can and can't.
• Nationalities The adjective that goes with each country.
• Numbers 0 to 10, days of the week, and goodbyes The first words you need to arrange anything.
• People and family Immediate family and the words for describing people.
• Phone numbers and numbers 11 to 100 Saying and hearing longer numbers.
• Prepositions in, on, at for time and place Which one goes with a time, a day, and a place.
• Prepositions of place — in, on, under Saying where something is.
• Prices and paying Money, prices, and buying something small.
• Regular verbs Everyday verbs that take -ed in the past.
• Saying how you feel Tired, hungry, cold, and the rest.
• Small everyday objects What people carry in a bag or pocket.
• Souvenirs and gifts Things you buy to take home.
• Telling the time Clock times and the phrases that go with them.
• Traveling Getting somewhere: tickets, bags, and arriving.
• Verb phrases with get, go, have, and do The four verbs that carry most of everyday English.

Elementary

• Adverbs and expressions of frequency always, hardly ever, twice a week.
• Cardinal numbers 1–20 Recognizing and using numbers 1 through 20.
• City vacations Getting away for a few days.
• Classroom language Instructions, requests, and asking about words.
• Colors Common color words.
• Common adverbs quickly, carefully, well, badly.
• Common descriptive adjectives Everyday adjectives describing size, temperature, and age, and their opposites.
• Common food and drink vocabulary Everyday food and drink words.
• Countries and nationalities Where people are from and the adjective for it.
• Daily routine The order of an ordinary day.
• Days of the week Names and order of the seven days of the week.
• Directions Asking the way and following the answer.
• Feelings Tired, worried, excited, and the rest.
• Food and drink — meals and dishes Extending everyday food vocabulary to whole meals.
• Food containers A carton, a jar, a packet.
• Greetings & Introductions — core phrases Common greetings and self-introductions for first meetings.
• High numbers Hundreds, thousands, and millions.
• Immediate family vocabulary Common words for immediate family members.
• In a hotel Checking in, rooms, and asking staff for help.
• Irregular past participles The third form, and where it differs from the past.
• Irregular verbs The past forms that have to be learned.
• Jobs What people do for a living.
• Modifiers — very, really, quite Turning an adjective up or down.
• Months and seasons Names of the twelve months and the four seasons.
• Music Genres, instruments, and talking about taste.
• Noise — verbs and verb phrases Sounds people and places make.
• Past time expressions yesterday, last week, two years ago.
• Phones and the internet Devices, apps, and what people do with them.
• Places and buildings What a town is made of.
• Prepositions of place and movement Where something is, and which way it goes.
• Public transport Getting across a city.
• Tens and compound numbers 21–100 Forming compound numbers like 'thirty-four' and recognizing multiples of ten up to 100.
• The date and ordinal numbers Saying and writing dates.
• The house Rooms, furniture, and what is in them.
• The weather and seasons Describing weather, and the time of year.
• Things in a room — in, on, under Everyday objects and where they are.
• Understanding a menu Courses, dishes, and ordering.
• Verb phrases for predictions The actions a fortune-teller deals in.
• Verb phrases with go, have, and get Three verbs that carry most of everyday English.
• Verbs that take the infinitive The verbs that must be followed by to.
• Word formation — write to writer Building a person-noun from a verb.
• Words in a story The vocabulary a short narrative runs on.

Pre-Intermediate

• Adjectives ending in -ed and -ing The difference between bored and boring, interested and interesting.
• Adjectives followed by a preposition Pairs such as afraid of, interested in, good at, and worried about.
• Adverbs of manner Forming and using adverbs such as carefully, quickly, and well.
• Animals and insects Wild animals, pets, farm animals, and common insects.
• Asking for and giving directions Street directions, landmarks, and public transport instructions.
• At hotel reception Checking in, reporting a problem with a room, and asking staff for help.
• At the airport Check-in, security, boarding, arrivals, and delays.
• Clothes and accessories Everyday clothing, footwear, and accessories, with wear, carry, and a pair of.
• Common everyday verb phrases High-frequency phrases built on have, go, get, do, and make.
• Common phrasal verbs Everyday two-word verbs such as turn off, look after, and give up.
• Countries, nationalities, and languages Naming the people and the languages of different countries.
• Describing a town or city Buildings, facilities, atmosphere, and what a place is like to live in.
• Describing appearance — hair, height, and build Answering What does he look like? with hair, height, and build.
• Easily confused verbs Pairs such as lend and borrow, win and earn, bring and take.
• Feeling ill — symptoms and remedies Common symptoms, asking at a pharmacy, and simple treatments.
• Housework and chores Everyday jobs around the home and how often they get done.
• In a restaurant Booking a table, ordering, asking about dishes, and paying the bill.
• Life events and biographies be born, grow up, get married, retire, and other stages of a life.
• make or do? Which collocations take make and which take do.
• Meanings of get get meaning receive, become, arrive, and buy, plus common phrases with get.
• Modifiers — very, really, quite, a bit Making an adjective stronger or weaker.
• On the phone Making, answering, and ending a call, and taking a message.
• Paraphrasing — explaining a word you don't know Phrases such as It's a kind of, You use it for, and It's the opposite of.
• Personality adjectives and their opposites Pairs such as friendly and unfriendly, generous and mean, lazy and hard-working.
• Phrases with back come back, go back, pay back, call back, and give back.
• Prepositions of place Positioning things with in, on, under, behind, between, and opposite.
• Prepositions of time and place — at, in, on Choosing the right preposition for clock times, dates, months, and locations.
• Question words who, what, which, where, when, why, how, whose, and how plus an adjective.
• Reading numbers aloud Decimals, fractions, percentages, dates, phone numbers, and prices.
• Returning and exchanging goods Receipts, refunds, exchanges, and explaining what is wrong with an item.
• say or tell? Which verb takes a person as its object, and the fixed phrases each one takes.
• School subjects and school life Subjects, schedules, tests, and school routines.
• Shopping and paying Shops, prices, receipts, sales, and ways of paying.
• Sports and physical activity Sports, the verbs play, do, and go, and the places where sport happens.
• Talking about fear Words such as scared, terrified, nervous, and phobia.
• Talking about similarities and differences Phrases such as we both, in common, the same as, and different from.
• The body, health, and staying well Parts of the body, common symptoms, and healthy habits.
• Time expressions in a narrative a few minutes later, by the time, as soon as, and in the end.
• Time phrases with for and since Which duration phrases follow for and which follow since.
• Vacations and travel Booking, packing, sightseeing, and describing a trip.
• Verb phrases for telling a story Phrases such as get lost, run away, and break down that keep a narrative moving.
• Verbs and their opposites Pairs such as find and lose, remember and forget, arrive and leave.
• Verbs followed by a preposition Fixed pairs such as arrive in, wait for, depend on, and listen to.
• Verbs followed by the -ing form Patterns such as enjoy, hate, don't mind, and spend time.
• Verbs followed by the infinitive Patterns such as try to, forget to, decide to, and promise to.
• Word building — making nouns Forming nouns from verbs and adjectives with -ment, -tion, -ness, and -ity.

Intermediate

• Adjectives ending -ed and -ing How you feel against what caused it.
• Compound nouns Two nouns acting as one, and where the stress goes.
• Crime Offences, people, and the justice process.
• Education Schools, subjects, exams, and qualifications.
• Electronic devices Devices, and what people do with them.
• Family and adjectives of personality Relationships, and what people are like.
• Food and cooking Ingredients, methods, and describing a dish.
• Houses Rooms, features, and describing where you live.
• Making adjectives and adverbs Suffixes that turn one part of speech into another.
• Money Earning, spending, saving, and owing.
• Movies Genres, people, and the language of a review.
• Phone language Calls, messages, and phone etiquette.
• Relationships Meeting, getting on, falling out, and staying together.
• Shopping, and making nouns from verbs Buying and returning, with the noun forms that go with it.
• Sport Games, players, places, and results.
• Strong adjectives exhausted, amazed, freezing — and the modifiers they take.
• The body Parts of the body, and gestures.
• Transport Getting around, and what goes wrong.
• Verbs and adjectives with prepositions The fixed pairings that have to be learned whole.
• Work Jobs, conditions, applying, and leaving.

Intermediate Plus

• Adjective suffixes Turning nouns and verbs into adjectives.
• At a restaurant Booking, ordering, complaining, and paying.
• British and American English Words that differ across the two.
• Cash machines and money phrasal verbs Getting money out, and the verbs that go with it.
• DIY, repairs, and paraphrasing Fixing things, and describing a tool you cannot name.
• Exams Preparing, sitting, and the language of results.
• Historic buildings, wars, and battles Places with a past, and the events in them.
• Live entertainment Concerts, theater, tickets, and audiences.
• Looking after yourself Health, treatments, and self-care.
• Names First names, last names, nicknames, and what people are called.
• Packing and travel preparation What goes in the bag, and what gets forgotten.
• Photography Taking, editing, and describing pictures.
• Shops and services Where people go, and what they ask for.
• Stages of life Childhood to old age, and the events between.
• Study and work Courses, applications, jobs, and CVs.
• Television Shows, viewing habits, and opinions.
• The country and rural life Landscape, wildlife, and living outside a city.
• Trash and recycling Waste, sorting it, and the language of doing better.
• Weddings The event, the people, and the customs.
• Word building Prefixes and suffixes that shift a word between classes.

Upper-Intermediate

• Adverbs and adverbial phrases Manner, degree, time, and comment.
• Advertising and business Campaigns, markets, and commercial language.
• Air travel Airports, flights, and everything that delays them.
• Clothes and fashion Garments, styles, and describing an outfit.
• Collocation — word pairs The combinations that sound native and the ones that do not.
• Compound adjectives and modifiers well-known, hard-working, and the adverbs that grade them.
• Crime and punishment Offences, the process, and the outcome.
• Expressing feelings with verbs and -ed/-ing adjectives Two grammatical routes to the same feeling.
• Expressions with take take part, take place, take after, and the rest.
• Illnesses and injuries Symptoms, conditions, and treatment.
• Science Research, evidence, and discovery.
• Sleep Rest, insomnia, dreams, and habits.
• The environment and weather Climate, conditions, and environmental problems.
• The media Outlets, formats, and how a story travels.
• Verbs often confused Pairs that look alike and behave differently.
• Word building — prefixes and suffixes Building a family of words from one root.
• Working out meaning from context Strategies for an unknown word in a real text.

Advanced

• Animal matters Animals, and the idioms drawn from them.
• Art and color idioms The visual arts, and the idioms color supplies.
• Compound adjectives Two-part adjectives, and how they are built.
• Conflict and warfare The vocabulary of dispute, from argument to war.
• Describing books and movies Plot, character, craft, and judgment.
• Expressions with time The idioms and collocations built on time.
• Finance
• Health and medicine, and similes Clinical vocabulary, and the comparisons English reaches for.
• Lexical areas and semantic fields How vocabulary clusters, and how to learn it that way.
• Personality Precise character description, beyond the obvious adjectives.
• Phones, technology, and adjectives with prepositions Devices, and the prepositions their adjectives demand.
• Phrases with get The idioms and collocations built on get.
• Preparing food Technique, texture, and the language of cooking.
• Sounds and the human voice How things sound, and how people speak.
• Travel and tourism Places, journeys, and the industry around them.
• Word building — abstract nouns Turning verbs and adjectives into abstractions.
• Word building — adjectives, nouns, and verbs Moving one root across word classes.
• Word formation — prefixes Negative, quantitative, and attitudinal prefixes.
• Words that are often confused Near neighbors that are not interchangeable.

Advanced Plus

• Acronyms and initialisms Abbreviations, and how they are said.
• Binomials Fixed word pairs joined by and or or.
• Common adverb collocations, and verbs for making things The adverbs that pair naturally, and the verbs of construction.
• Connotation Words with the same denotation and different weight.
• Eating and drinking Precise culinary and gustatory vocabulary.
• Idioms from Shakespeare The phrases the language kept.
• Individuals and populations The language of demography and society.
• Numbers and measurements Quantities, units, and reading figures aloud.
• Phrasal nouns Nouns built from phrasal verbs.
• Prefixes and suffixes Building and unbuilding words at speed.
• Punishment The vocabulary of sanction and justice.
• Research language Studies, findings, evidence, and hedging.
• Sophisticated emotions Emotional vocabulary beyond the everyday.
• Vague language sort of, or something, and the rest — imprecision used deliberately.
• Ways of moving The precise verbs English has for movement.
• Ways of seeing The verbs and nouns of perception and viewpoint.

Proficiency

• Collocation at the edge of acceptability The pairings a native speaker allows and the ones they do not.
• Connotation and semantic prosody Words that mean the same thing and carry different weight.
• Euphemism and understatement Saying less than you mean, deliberately.
• Humor, irony, and wordplay The vocabulary of not meaning it.
• Idiomatic language in current use Idiom that is alive, not dictionary idiom.
• Loanwords and borrowed phrases What English took, and how it says it now.
• Metaphor in everyday language The metaphors buried in ordinary words.
• Regional and cultural variation The same language, differently in each place.
• Register — formal, neutral, and colloquial Choosing the level of the room.
• Specialist and technical vocabulary Reading and using the language of a field you do not work in.

Frequently asked questions

Guides by topic

• Word building in English
• Numbers, dates, and times in English

Related learning areas

• English

Questions

• All questions in this subject

Teachers

• Christopher Huntley
• Robert Salo
• Andrie Oberholzer
• Minnette Oberholzer
• Mary Huntley
• Jasmina

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